let us play pretend
by Hogwarts Online II
Summary: A collection of Drabbles from the Slytherin house on the Hogwarts Online forum. All drabbles are by a different Author with a different character. Please R&R and no favs with out a review. Thank you.
1. Pansy Parkinson

___(For Slytherin House's Drabble Collaboration but especially for Professor Leesha for being the awsomest head of house ever)_

_**and the academy award goes to**_

_by Nanaho-Hime_

Life has always always been hard. Her mother hates her and her father is dead and she has to fill that gaping hole in her chest somehow. She likes to feel beautiful, and she likes it when she has money, but she rarely does either.

She doesn't have the kind of delicate Slytherin beauty that the Greengrasses have, or the Malfoys or the Zabinis or the Warringtons or the Montagues. She has hard features, a square jaw and bright eyes and cheeks that have a permanently flushed look and she knows that no one will ever call her beautiful

It wounds her a bit, because no one wants her, not anyone in the world, and it's a veryvery lonely, a veryvery _long _life.

So she pretends.

She's a fabulous actress, from the minute she sets foot inside Hogwarts. She's no fool, Pansy Parkinson, and she plays her role as the queen of Slytherin House flawlessly. She latches on to the obvious king, Draco Malfoy, from day one. She never feels any love for him, and it is a small victory for her.

(Because even though they all think she is a love sick fool, _she's_ the one who's manipulating him, _she's_ the one who's running the show.)

She really is a Slytherin at heart, manipulative streak and all.

She knows that she is destined for an ugly fall. Her lifestyle calls for it, and she doesn't expect any less. Karma's a bitch and Draco dumps her heartlessly but she doesn't _care_. Because she was the one who was leading him on and not the other way around. He doesn't know it but this is her victory.

It's her only mode of t escape, this act that she does, and really? She should win a fucking award or something.

_I love performing and pretending - it's very easy for me._

It's like she was born to do it, and, God, it makes her feel so sophisticated.

(Like she's got the most beautiful fucking mask in the world.)


	2. Regulus Black

**_EVIL_**

_by howlsstthemoon_

You only ever wanted to make your parents proud. To make them _forget_ rebellious Sirius and remember _you_, only ever _you_, unforgotten forever.

x

_Toujours pur, _correct? Blacks, never to be ignored. Never back down. Never act as something lower than you are. _You are the best of the best. You are _royalty. You are a _Black_, Regulus Arcturus Black, and you are to be proud of who you are.

(But you've always been a little bit jealous of the scorched, out-of-place, permanently-etched mark into the soft fabric of the Black Family Tree you pass each day on your way to-what is it they're calling it?-your _destiny_. Your _fate. _Greatness.) (_Evil_.)

x

For you, being is like pretending. Pretending you _believe _in the horrible cruelties an arrogant, pale-faced man is uttering in his clear, high voice. Pretending that innocents deserve death; that you don't care as you watch _people_, breathing _people_, don't matter as their lives are ripped from them with two simple words, their bodies swaying into lifelessness like rag dolls.

But you're smart. You're brilliant. You're clever, you really are. And you know. Like a puzzle, you've put the pieces together and felt the horror in your stomach as you examine it as a whole.

So you pretend to believe, you pretend to _be_, for your parents. Because to you, it _matters_ when you see the sparkle in your father's onyx eyes when he sees the Dark Mark burn against your arm, the curved smile on your mother's face as you wince, knowing you have to serve a man out for blood.

You've forgotten what real is like.

x

The sound of waves outside of the cave echo against the rocky walls, making your head ache and your stomach churn. Had it not been for the darkness, your sight would have been blurry. Your head pounds and you want to keel over and gag but their isn't enough strength in your sore bones to stand.

As unconsciousness takes over, you hear footsteps, moans, water dripping against the cold floor. There is something in your mind that tells you that you're going to die.

Your half-lidded eyes begin to close, your heart beating slower and slower as death comes closer. To no one in particular in this room where you are the only flame of life (beginning to burn out quickly), you whisper, "We're not all evil, you know."

A hand grabs you blindly and you don't even struggle. You welcome death with open arms. You're unafraid. Unafraid of everything now. Your hands shake and your voice breaks as your life ebbs away from you, slowly and painfully.

And then the world is Black, like it belongs.


	3. Blaise Zabini

_**Just Pretend**_

_by xXKissingSinXx _

The second year screamed as the Cruciatus Curse hit him full force and he was forced to the floor, writhing in pain. The sick laughter of Alecto Carrow echoed throughout the room as the Death Eater held the curse on the young Gryffindor.

Blaise stood behind the group of Slytherins who had been invited to watch. _"A lesson in how to treat Mudbloods and Blood Traitors."_ is how they had been greeted. He had seen the confusion in the child's eyes turn to fear and then came the screams and he saw the pain as he found himself on the wrong end of the curse.

The child had done nothing wrong. _Wrong place at the wrong time_. And yet here he was being punished.

Could he pretend it hadn't happened when he returned to his dormitory? Would he break down? Would he scream into his pillow from humiliation? Was he capable of waking up tomorrow morning and coming down to breakfast and pretending that yesterday had never happened?

Blaise couldn't. He knew the moment he flinched and grimaced as he watched the child being tortured _for no reason other than to satisfy his sadistic tormentors_ that the scene would play over and over in his mind. He would go to bed and close his eyes and _see_ and _hear_ and _feel_. He knew the _second_ he felt sorry for the kid that this day would forever be engraved in both of their minds.

He closed his eyes but couldn't banish the sounds of the screaming and the begging for it to stop. The sick laughter of his housemates and _Professors_ mixed and tangled with the screams until neither could be recognised for what they truly were.

And then it stopped and Blaise opened his eyes. The child lay on the floor, twitching and panting, not daring to move. Amycus put a hand on his sister's arm and turned to face the Slytherins. A sadistic, uncaring sneer twisting his features.

"Who would like to demonstrate what they have learned today?" His eyes roamed the group of nine students, all sixth or seventh year, resting on Blaise. "Zabini, come here."

He kept his eyes trained on the Death Eater as he stepped forward; already knowing what he was expected to do. He drew his wand and turned to face the child, now on his knees, pleading and fear in his eyes.

Blaise pointed his wand at the child, hesitating.

"What are you waiting for?" Alecto almost screeched.

He wanted to leave. He didn't want to feel the eyes burning into him. He didn't want to see the fear in the child's eyes. He wanted to lower his wand and leave the torturing to the demons who were truly capable of it without _remorse, fear, hesitation_.

But the consequence in doing so would be worse than subjecting the child to another round of torture.

He closed his eyes briefly and, upon opening them, cast the curse and the child was screaming once more.

He pretended to enjoy it. He pretended that his mind didn't scream at him to stop.

_If we remove ourselves from the world, we can pretend that we are following our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak._

He pretended he was a demon.


	4. Flora and Hestia Carrow

**_Liars and Pretenders_**

_by Alice9490_

"Hestia."

Her sister's voice drifted softly towards her and the older Carrow turned. "Flora?" She asked upon seeing the look of confusion and hurt upon her face.

"You told." Was all Flora said.

Hestia knew immediately what her sister was talking about. "I had to."

Flora stepped forward. "No, you didn't. You could have pretended we didn't see anything." She lowered her voice. "They will know it was us."

"I sent a letter using one of the school's owls and I made sure the handwriting was ugly. They will never know."

"She showed me the letter, I asked her why she was crying and she showed me the letter. You _lied_ Hestia, we never saw them kissing, they were only talking and you _lied_."

Hestia sniffed. "He was never good enough for her anyway. It is better that it ends now rather than to go on living a lie." She locked eyes with Flora. "You would have done the same."

Flora shook her head. "No, you're wrong Hestia. I would have stayed out of it, it was not your business to get involved." She stepped back. "You said you wouldn't tell and you did, you are a liar."

Anger flashed in Hestia's eyes. "Only as much as you are. You broke Mother's favourite vase and lied when she asked what had happened."

"That was an accident."

"You still did it. You lied to Mother's face, pretending you didn't know anything." Hestia took her sisters hand. "Flora, lying is a way of life. Everyone does it."

"That doesn't make it right."

"If Mother were to ask again would you tell her the truth." Flora didn't answer. "I thought so. I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we are someone else."

"I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth."

"You may think that but you do lie occasionally. Sometimes you have to."

As much as Flora hated to admit it, her sister was right.


	5. Daphne Greengrass

_**the queen dethroned**_

_by s i l v e r a u r o r a_

:-:

Slytherin is politics. Slytherin is studying the play of power and currying favour and being both subservient and outrageous when the situation demands it. Slytherin is knowing that the world owes you something. Slytherin is like a Tudor court – all pretty (and not so pretty) girls and the powerful and the obsequious and the charming men.

And it's a well-established fact that Draco Malfoy is the Slytherin prince – he's got those hawklike good-looks and the utterly polished uncaring veneer, and his princess in Pansy Parkinson.

But Daphne Greengrass is the fucking queen, and don't let anything convince you otherwise.

She's got the whole act down to perfection. She's the one who does her duty by her house and by her friends, and in her opinion, duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical.

So those new shoes and new dresses and new hairstyles? Yeah they're pointless, but image is like currency in Slytherin and Daphne Greengrass is the richest of them all.

"Hey Greengrass," a voice says, and she turns her elegant head to one side to see Theodore Nott jogging after her down the halls, hair falling over his forehead and his blue eyes bright with exercising. "How's life?"

"Oh, piss off," she responds quickly, glaring at him prettily, her blonde hair pulled neatly back into a bun, curling tendrils escaping to frame her face. "Can't you go shower or something?"

"You mean to say you're not enjoying my company?" he teases, falling into step beside her easily and nudging her in the side.

"Not exactly."

"Well that's a shame," he replies with a large grin, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Because I rather enjoy yours."

Daphne narrows her eyes and retreats into stony silence.

The dangerous thing about Theo Nott is that he's like the charming rogue that appears out of nowhere and sweeps the queen off her feet and invariably gets her killed for infidelity. Daphne refuses to ignore the possibility that he's the king to her queen, the … something to her whatever. It's all irrelevant anyway because _nothing is going to happen._

"Can't you go annoy someone else?" she inquires with a refined air of boredom, trying to ignore the fact that he's just stripped off his shirt and is now displaying a torso more perfectly defined than a noun in a dictionary. "And put your clothes back on."

"I've been for a run," he protests with a practised, innocent air – and it is this exact act that has her wondering whether he pretends just as much as she does. "I'm hot."

She resists the slavish comment her brain wants her to make and instead crosses her arms and forces her mouth to make a little moue of disapproval.

"It's not very polite to go wandering around the corridors of Hogwarts with no shirt on," she points out, trying to control her smile. "Someone might get offended."

"It's seven-thirty on a Sunday morning," he responds with an indolent grin. "Only someone as keen to see the sunrise as you would be out."

"How do you know I'm out to see the sunrise?" she asks in astonishment, her act falling away as she stares at him in sincere disbelief. He glances sidelong down at her with those wonderful blue eyes that sparkle in the dawnlight.

"Because, Daphne," he replies, his voice caressing her name like velvet, "I see right through your damn pretending."

And then he's suddenly pinning her against the wall, his hands clutching her to him as though she will slip right away through his fingers, his mouth on hers hungry and needy and too controlled for too long. She finds herself moaning into the kiss, her body arching up into his, and she feels his smile against her lips.

"You're such a fraud," he murmurs as they part, and then he leaves her hot and dishevelled against the wall, her act of dutifulness shattered, the queen dethroned and the girl released.

:-:

_(please don't favourite without reviewing, thank you.)_


	6. Draco Malfoy

_**all the things come back to you**_

_by Vanity Sinning_

Every hero has a tragic downfall, an Achilles heel; Draco Malfoy's not a hero. In fact he's the exact opposite, a villain some would say and Merlin knows he'll end up a death eater. But while he's at Hogwarts he's a fucking King.

He has everything. The pointed good looks, the wealth, the power over his fellow Slytherins and the Queen Pansy Parkinson, in other words Draco Malfoy is a fucking god.

Yet he pretends as they all do. He pretends he wants the mark on his arm smiling proudly as it burns his skin, he pretends to be honored when Lord Voldemort chooses him to be the one that kills Dumbledore, he pretends he loves Pansy Parkinson when he doesn't feel a damn thing for her, he pretends he enjoys watching as every one around him falls apart, but most of all Draco pretends that he is okay.

He's pretended strength all his life and he can not fail now. Not when he is King, not when everyone knows if he fails he's dead. For it is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

So he loses himself in bathrooms, and he can't sleep at night, and every waking moment he is haunted because he's scared. So he grows thinner from eating less, and paler from the stress that grips his mind, and the bags under his eyes grow deep. It doesn't matter because he has to pretend, and pretend, and pretend.

And still he falls, as they all do and his fall is tragic indeed. The ribbons of his lies unravel and his crown is broken and they all know he is a fool. They all know their King has fallen and like the Slytherins they are, they all sneer at him and laugh.

So Draco Malfoy isn't a King anymore, his power is gone with his crown; he breaks the heart of his Queen. In other words the god Draco Malfoy has become mortal.

All the things come back to him, all the things he's done, the wrongs he committed, and the entire people he's hurt. And indeed he is the most tragic of all.


End file.
